Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 Review

If you’re looking for a smartwatch to complement your Samsung phone, the Galaxy Watch 7 should be at the top of your list. It costs $299.99 just like the previous version, adds holistic health insights courtesy of Galaxy AI, and benefits from revised gesture controls, a dual-frequency GPS, more storage, and a faster processor. The short battery life remains puzzling, and we noted slightly off readings for running distances and sleep times in testing, but neither downside is enough to seriously limit its appeal. Overall, the Galaxy Watch 7’s slight improvements and AI-powered health insights keep it ahead of the Wear OS competition, though the OnePlus Watch 2 is still worth a look for the same price if battery life is a particular concern.

Design: Familiar Hardware

At a glance, the Galaxy Watch 7 closely resembles the Galaxy Watch 6. Both watches are available in 40mm and 44mm variants and start at $299.99. Both come in LTE versions, though all models connect to Bluetooth, support Wi-Fi, and have NFC for mobile payments. The $649.99 Galaxy Watch Ultra, meanwhile, looks quite a bit different. Samsung tends to release two new smartwatches per year, and this year the company launched a new line to compete directly with Apple’s premium Ultra Watch 2. The Galaxy Watch Ultra fills a similar role as the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro from two years ago, but fans of a rotating bezel are stuck with the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic.

The base versions of the Watch 7 and Watch 6 also have identical screens. The 44mm models use 1.5-inch, 480-by-480-pixel Super AMOLED displays, while the 40mm versions go with 1.3-inch, 432-by-432-pixel panels.

As far as the design, the watches are available in different colors. The 40mm version of the Watch 7 comes in green or cream, while the 44mm one comes in green or silver. The 40mm variant of the Watch 6 comes in graphite or gold, while the 44mm one comes in graphite or silver.

Keep in mind that some of the aforementioned options will increase the price. For instance, the 44mm version adds $30 to the base cost, while LTE functionality tacks on $50. All of the color choices cost the same.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

Samsung sent the green 40mm non-LTE model with a green rubber sport band for this review. You can also get a fabric band or a rugged athleisure band. The bands have a quick-release button on the bottom so you can switch them out to suit the occasion. They detach easily, but I found reattaching the bands a little finicky; you really have to squeeze the button to get both sides in place.

The watch feels a little small on my wrist, but that’s not surprising since I’m a bigger dude. It’s not particularly thin at 0.38 inch (the larger version measures the same), but it does feel nice and light at just 1 ounce. (The larger version comes in at 1.2 ounces.) The watch doesn’t look out of place on my wrist and should fit well on people with a smaller frame, but check out the Garmin Lily 2 if you want something particularly thin and stylish.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

The Galaxy Watch 7 has an aluminum body with an IP68 weather resistance rating and a 5ATM waterproof rating: It’s impervious to dust and can survive at depths of up to 164 feet of calm fresh or salt water for 10 minutes. It also meets the MIL-STD-810H certification, meaning it can endure extreme temperature changes, blowing sand, and other environmental stressors such as vibration and shock. Samsung says the device can function between -4 and 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

These specs match those of the Galaxy Watch 6 and should generally give you peace of mind about the Watch 7’s durability in everyday scenarios. Just keep in mind that it’s not rugged enough to survive extreme sports. Samsung saves those upgrades for the Galaxy Watch Ultra; it has a titanium case, can survive at a wide range of altitudes, and gets a waterproof rating of 10ATM. It’s the most rugged watch Samsung has released, but it’s not as suitable for diving as the Apple Watch Ultra 2. For the most part, though, it stacks up well against Apple’s competitor.

Internal Specs: Some Welcome Updates

The Galaxy Watch 7 gets some upgrades over the Watch 6 under the hood. Both have 2GB of memory, but the Watch 7 has double the storage (32GB, versus 16GB for the Watch 6). The latest model also has a dual-frequency GPS to better track your location during your workouts, through any interference from tall buildings or trees.

The Watch 7 has upgraded software too: Google’s Wear OS 5 and Samsung’s One UI 6 interface. Both are one generation newer than for the Watch 6. Wear OS 5 brings performance and efficiency advancements over previous versions, while One UI 6 adds options for photo editing, translation, widgets, and more.

The Galaxy Watch 7 further distinguishes itself with health and sleep tracking. It gains FDA approval to detect sleep apnea, for instance, and adds advanced glycation end products (AGEs) index tracking to provide a more detailed picture of your metabolism. It uses Galaxy AI to encapsulate all of its tracked fitness and sleep metrics into a holistic Energy Score on a scale from 0 to 100. Galaxy AI provides wellness tips that offer guidance on how to improve your score and feel better, too.

Aside from the new features, the Watch 7 offers a wide range of health and sleep tracking sensors from the last generation: an accelerometer, a barometer, a blood oxygen monitor, a gyroscope, a heart rate monitor, a pedometer, and a temperature sensor.

It can also automatically or manually track lots of different workouts, and you can customize a target heart rate threshold for additional guidance during exercise. It monitors sleep, including the amount, blood oxygen level, heart rate, respiratory rate, skin temperature, stages, and even snoring. For the snoring detection, you need to keep your Samsung phone nearby. Additionally, you can take an ECG with the watch, and it can even measure body composition metrics like body fat percentage and body mass index (BMI), similar to a smart scale.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

Like the Galaxy Watch 6, the Watch 7 works with any modern Android phone (specifically a phone running Android 11 or later), but some of the more advanced features, like snoring detection and AI insights, require a Samsung phone.

The Watch 7’s improved processor, the Samsung Exynos W1000, comes with a promise of faster performance and 30% better power efficiency than the Galaxy Watch 6, which uses a Samsung Exynos W930 chip.

Battery Life: Unchanged and Disappointing

Given the improved power efficiency from the processor and the Wear OS 5 software, I expected the Galaxy Watch 7 to have better battery life than the Galaxy Watch 6 despite their shared battery capacities. The 44mm models have 425mAh batteries, while the 40mm versions have 300mAh cells.

Alas, the Galaxy Watch 7 doesn’t make any improvements here. The lackluster battery life was the biggest issue with the Galaxy Watch 6, and I’m mystified that Samsung doesn’t fix it with this generation. With the always-on display active, the Watch 7 lasted just 22 hours on my first test before reaching 1% charge and turning to time-only mode. Although I did use the battery-intensive GPS for a 30-minute run during this period, I also put the watch into sleep mode for my seven hours of shut-eye. The Watch 6 also lasted 22 hours in a similar test. On a second test in which I didn’t use the GPS, the Watch 7 lasted 28 hours. With the always-on display turned off and medium GPS use, the Watch 7 ran for 27 hours. The Watch 6 lasted 28 hours in this last scenario.

Regardless of which mode you choose, you need to charge your Watch 7 every day and perhaps even more often if you frequently rely on the GPS. The watch recharged from 1% to 100% in a reasonably fast 88 minutes.

When the Watch 6 came out, the Pixel Watch had its own battery issues, and there wasn’t much else in the way of competition for Android-based smartwatches. Since last year, however, the Pixel Watch 2 launched with better battery life than the original (around 33 hours in our tests). OnePlus also fixed the issues with the company’s first smartwatch; the OnePlus Watch 2 lasts 69 hours between charges with the always-on display active. The Galaxy Watch 7’s results are particularly disappointing because they mean that you might not even be able to take advantage of the holistic health features over an uninterrupted 24-hour period.

Setup and Controls: Seamless Operations

When it does have a charge, the Galaxy Watch 7 is fun and easy to use. The setup process is quick and painless, too. Apart from the watch itself, the box includes a charging cable that attaches magnetically to the bottom of the watch and a booklet with terms and conditions.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

To turn the watch on, simply hold the top right button. If you’re pairing your watch to a Samsung phone, you should see a prompt to set up the watch pop up on your phone. If you are using a phone from a different brand or don’t see the pop-up, you can find and pair the watch in the regular Bluetooth menu.

You need to download the Galaxy Wearable app if you don’t already have it to proceed. After the app asks you to enter the number that shows up on your watch to confirm your connection, it walks you through various terms and agreements and prompts you to sign into your Google account.

Next, you can select which apps you want to download and turn on an optional feature to back up your watch to the cloud. Then, you indicate which wrist you want to wear the watch on and the orientation of the buttons.

The watch proceeds to walk you through a few features, like workout routines and sleep apnea detection. It asks for location permission and permission to process your health data. You then pick a focus for the watch’s health guidance: Overall Health, Sleep, Exercise, or Healthy Weight.

Next, the watch introduces the sleep features and asks if you want to turn on detection for blood oxygen, snoring, and skin temperature during sleep. I enabled all three.

Finally, the Galaxy Watch 7 introduces the revamped gesture controls. If you have your watch paired to a Samsung phone, for instance, you can double-pinch your fingers to answer calls, dismiss alerts, play or pause music, or take a photo with the camera app open. This particular gesture matches the Double Tap gesture from recent Apple Watches. The Galaxy Watch 7 also lets you shake your hand or rotate your wrist twice to dismiss incoming calls or alarms. You can launch an app by forming a fist and then bending your wrist twice as though knocking, too. I used this knocking gesture to quickly launch the exercise activity section, though this occasionally opened from my incidental movements. The double-pinch gesture worked reliably and quickly, however.

After you set up your gestures, the Watch 7 completes the setup by taking you through the emergency settings. You can enable fall detection, and it tells you that you can call emergency services by holding the top button for five seconds. Additionally, you can toggle the Find My Watch feature.

Overall, the setup process is quick and mostly instructional. The watch also offers additional tips once you’re up and running.

Watch and App Navigation: Smooth and Reliable

Controlling the Watch 7 is intuitive and responsive. The top key is the home button. Tap it from anywhere to return to your home screen, and double-tap it to open the last active app. Press and hold the button to access Samsung’s digital assistant, Bixby. The bottom button takes you a step back when you are navigating through apps.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

Hold down on the watch face to edit it and change your watch’s look. Swipe down from the top of the watch for a quick panel of settings. Swipe up from the bottom to scroll through the watch’s apps. You can reorder the apps by dragging and dropping the icons. Scroll through the list or through any open page by swiping your finger along the side of the watch. Swipe right for notifications, or swipe left to scroll through a customizable list of tiles. Tile options include activity rings, body composition, energy score, exercise tracking, weather, and more.

You can add tiles and options to the quick panel from the watch itself, but you need to use the Galaxy Wearable app to remove or reorder options. It further provides access to additional watch faces and customization options, as well as lets you use the Find My Watch feature.

To get the most out of the Watch 7, you need two additional apps on your phone. The Samsung Health app lets you see extra details of tracked metrics like heart rate, sleep, and steps, while the Samsung Health Monitor app offers details on the ECG and Sleep Apnea features.

The Wearable, Health, and Health Monitor apps (Credit: Samsung/PCMag)

I dislike the need for three different apps to make the most of the watch, but Apple has a similar count, and the Pixel Watch 2 bars some of its advanced metrics behind a $9.99-per-month membership fee. The Watch 7, OnePlus Watch 2, and Pixel Watch 2 all run a version of Wear OS, so they have access to the same library of apps. Apple’s watchOS still offers a better variety, but you can likely find whatever popular third-party option you want on either.

Activity Tracking: More Metrics Than Most

Like the Galaxy Watch 6, the Galaxy Watch 7 separates itself from the Android-based competition with its detailed sleep and fitness tracking. The OnePlus Watch 2 doesn’t support ECG, skin temperature readings, fall detection, or period tracking. The Pixel Watch 2 doesn’t allow for on-demand blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) measurements. Neither measures your body composition metrics, tracks snoring, senses sleep apnea, or tracks AGEs.

Those last two features go above and beyond the capabilities of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, which also can’t detect snoring. Something else to consider is that neither of the Apple Watch models allows for blood oxygen saturation monitoring in the US.

In our review of the Galaxy Watch 6, we noted some minor issues with heart-rate accuracy. Samsung’s latest BioActive sensor makes improvements on this front. The heart-rate readings of the Galaxy Watch 7 proved spot-on in my testing. During a variety of exercises throughout the day and during sleep at night, it consistently matched the accurate Apple Watch Ultra 2 to within one or two beats per minute (bpm).

While on a run, I sprinted at intervals to test how well the heart-rate readings could keep up. At times, the Galaxy Watch 7 was more responsive than the Apple Watch Ultra 2, rising and dropping sooner when I increased or decreased my speed. The variability between the two was a little wider at these points, but both still settled near the same number, even at high heart-rate levels.

The Galaxy Watch 7 tracks a lot of different metrics during a run. In addition to cadence, duration, heart rate, and heart-rate zones, you can get granular form metrics like asymmetry, contact time, flight time, regularity, stiffness, and vertical. It tracks VO2 Max (maximal oxygen consumption), as well, to gauge your general physical fitness.

(Credit: Samsung/PCMag)

The dual-frequency GPS traces your running route and distance. Oddly, some of the lines had some wobble to them, showing me zagging a bit on a path when I was running in a straight line. These extra zags caused it to slightly overestimate my travel distance. I appreciated this boost but could see this as an issue for serious runners trying to train for a competition.

Aside from running, the Watch 7 can track a wide range of activities. I was pleased to find options for rowing machine, elliptical, and stair climber workouts to match my gym routine. Samsung tracks just basic metrics with these options (duration and heart rate), nothing like stroke rate for the rowing machine, for instance.

The Watch 7 did not automatically detect workouts while I was using these machines, whereas the Apple Watch Ultra 2 consistently and correctly identified which machine I was using within three minutes. The Watch 7 did automatically start timing a walking workout more frequently than the Apple Watch Ultra 2 when I was going about my ordinary life, and I appreciated the assurance that I was getting some exercise while grocery shopping and hunting for snack food.

I measured my body composition with the Galaxy Watch 7, as well. Doing so requires that you wear your watch, put the ring finger and middle finger of your opposite hand on the two buttons, and hold your arms up. You also need to enter your weight so it can get an accurate reading. Against the proven HumeHealth Body Pod, a smart scale with a handlebar, the fat percentage of the Watch 7 skewed a little high, but the BMI (a measure of your body weight in relation to your height) matched the readings from the HumeHealth scale exactly.

Sleep Tracking and AI: Slightly Off Sleep Times

Given that it feels light and comfortable on my wrist, the Galaxy Watch 7 didn’t bother me during sleep. You can activate a Sleep mode in settings that turns off the display and gesture controls, though I wish that was available via the Quick Panel.

I wore the Galaxy Watch 7 alongside the Apple Watch Ultra 2 over the course of four nights while also monitoring sleep with a nearby Nest Hub. Generally, the Galaxy Watch 7 gave me credit for the least amount of sleep of the three devices. For the first two nights, its sleep stage chart showed a strange gap in the data, and that gap caused it to underestimate the time I spent in bed. Even on a night without a gap, the total sleep number skewed low. For example, on one night without a gap, the Nest Hub gave me credit for 6 hours and 42 minutes of sleep, Apple credited me with 6:39, and Samsung recorded just 6:03.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

The sleep-stages charts generally matched across all three devices, as did the respiratory rate. Apple and Samsung’s devices showed similar heart-rate numbers.

Samsung didn’t detect any snoring or sleep apnea for me, and I liked its additional skin-temperature graph, sleep score, and sleep-score factors, which gave me an overall sense of how well I rested. The watch usually docked points for my sleep time but gave me credit in other areas like physical recovery, restfulness, and mental recovery.

(Credit: Samsung/PCMag)

This sleep-score number also plays into Samsung’s overall Energy Score alongside the previous day’s activity, sleeping heart rate, and heart-rate variability. Determined by the above factors and Galaxy AI, my score was in the 70s after that shorter night of rest. But when I got a little more sleep and a little more exercise the previous day, it reliably climbed up into the 80s.

Samsung’s AI-generated daily Wellness Tip focused more on my exercise time than sleep time. While the idea that I need to exercise more feels like simplistic advice, the details of the tip incorporated specifics based on my averages and offered a reasonable goal.

(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)

Samsung’s Energy Score number stays static throughout the day. It’s similar in concept to Garmin’s Body Battery metric on devices like the Vivoactive 5, but the Body Battery level rises and drops throughout the day based on your activity. I prefer Garmin’s approach to Samsung’s, as the fluid number feels more informative. Still, Samsung is ahead of Google and OnePlus on this front.

Verdict: Still Ahead of Competitors

Minor accuracy issues aside, Samsung still makes the best Wear OS smartwatch for fitness and sleep tracking. The Galaxy Watch 7 doubles down on these strengths with even more insights on everything from sleep apnea to overall wellness with Galaxy AI. It’s a better smartwatch than the Galaxy Watch 6 for the same price, but we’re disappointed that it doesn’t solve our battery life concerns. Most people in the market for an Android-based smartwatch (and especially Samsung users) should still get the Galaxy Watch 7, though the OnePlus Watch 2 is a strong alternative if you want to go multiple days without recharging.